Saturday, 3 March 2012

5.13b Hosting recombinant DNA

Describe how plasmids and viruses can act as vectors, which takes up pieces of DNA, then insert this recombinant DNA into other cells.

After the recombinant DNA is formed, it is necessary to find a host cell for it. In this instance, we will use the virus to achieve this.

We have to remove the nucleic acid from the virus, leaving us with the capsid of the virus alone.

The plasmids are taken up by the virus and the virus will act as a vector of the recombinant DNA.

It will help us transfer that DNA to our host cell, the virus known as a phage infects bacterial cells, and so the virus is able to attach to the cell membrane of the bacteria and insert the recombinant DNA into our host cell.

At the end of this process, we will have a bacteria containing the recombinant DNA including the human DNA for insulin